Location: Kingdom of eSwatini
Southern African Alliance for Youth Employment
Issue
The Southern African region (SADC) has a large youth population and low levels of decent employment for its youth, resulting in high levels of youth unemployment and underemployment. The lack of formal employment, irregularity of work and social protection means that youth in the SADC region face poverty and inequality.
Researchers have described the effect of this insecurity on youth as a ‘transitional limbo’. Without a secure income, young people are unable to meet their social roles that accompany adulthood. These challenges are compounded by a lack of credible information and a lack of mobilisation around youth employment. Youth voices in designing and implementing prevalent national and regional youth employment strategies and policies has been limited.
Project
The Southern African Alliance for Youth Employment (SAAYE) was formally established in February 2016 by the Economic Justice Network with the Commonwealth Foundation’s support. The Alliance is made up of representatives from trade unions, church councils, student unions, and civil society organisations across nine Southern African nations. Trade unions, churches and the civil society organisations, cumulatively have considerable potential power to determine the shape of policy for youth employment in Southern Africa.
The Economic Justice Network (EJN) performs as the Secretariat of SAAYE. SAAYE aims to play a coordinating and facilitating role for youth formations to inform and influence public discourse about youth employment; contribute to reforming employment and youth related policy; and, to hold governments accountable to their commitments to address youth unemployment across the SADC region – both nationally and regionally.
The Commonwealth Foundation’s capacity development approach has facilitated training, engagement and development of structures within the Alliance. A six member Working Group serves as the highest decision-making body of SAAYE. They also represent the Alliance at events such as the SADC-CNGO Civil Society Forum and to plan regional actions.
Strengthening women’s voices to advocate for women’s land rights
Issue
There exists, in African countries, a drive to continue strengthening leadership of African women, tackling patriarchy and empowering them for a secure and just Africa.
Project
Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) are strengthening the voice of women to advocate for secure and equitable land rights in Southern Africa.
This project aims to strengthen the collective voice of women to talk about large scale land acquisitions in Southern Africa, and promote women’s access to land in Namibia, Kingdom of eSwatini and Zambia.
This will be achieved by building the capacity of women’s organisation members in these countries to undertake and publish feminist research on the effects of land acquisitions on women, and conduct advocacy campaigns with affected communities and policy makers.
Women’s experiences will be documented in their own words in the form of oral ‘herstories’ through which women will articulate the challenges, gaps, successes and strategies employed in control and access to land rights.
It is expected that by the end of the project, women will have access to important advocacy documents and research, which can be used as tools to raise awareness of and advocate for stronger land rights for women.
Akina Mama wa Afrika
Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) is an international, Pan-African, non-governmental organisation for African women with its headquarters in Uganda. It was founded to create space for African women to organise, build links with each other and speak for themselves. AMwA has been working to build African women’s leadership capacities since its creation, acting as a training centre and an advocacy engine for the African women’s movement. The organisation aims to: influence policies that affect African women at national, regional and international levels; strengthen and promote African women’s feminist leadership; participate in the construction of a feminist epistemology by African women.
Like AMwA on Facebook
Subscribe to AMwA on YouTube
